11'8" x 17'8" Agra Oriental Rug | Gold Bordered All Over Floral | Brand New, Never Used

This is a palace scale Agra woven in the classical Mughal manner, an orange red field carrying an all over floral system inside a broad saffron gold border that lifts the whole rug off the floor. At 140 by 212 inches it is a genuine room filler for a formal great room or a long dining hall, and it sits at the top end of the 12x18 oversize rugs we stock. The pile is hand-knotted wool on a cotton foundation, thick and evenly clipped, with no wear anywhere because the rug has never been laid in a home. It carries our inventory tag F-6408, shown in the final photograph, and ships with a certificate of authenticity.

Design and Motifs

The field is drawn as a true all over floral design with no central medallion, so the pattern reads the same from every seat in the room. Ivory vines run the full length in long mirrored curves, feeding large serrated palmettes, split leaf forms, open lotus blossoms and 8 petal rosettes, with small navy lozenges and a slender navy diamond anchoring the middle of the field. The drawing repeats on a vertical axis rather than a strict lattice, which gives the surface movement without clutter. The main border is unusually generous for a rug this size and carries its own floral procession, alternating burgundy palmettes with cream cloud leaves and red rosettes on a gold ground. Inside and outside that band sit reciprocal ivory cross flower panels, navy cartouche squares and 2 narrow zigzag guard stripes, all closed by a plain rust outer edge, a border structure that frames 4 corners cleanly with no broken motifs.

Color: Orange Red Field, Saffron Gold Border

The ground is a warm orange red that shifts between terracotta and brick depending on the light and the direction of the nap, the natural variation you expect from rust and orange red rugs with a deep wool pile. Against it the borders are a saffron mustard gold, closer to honey where the light hits the pile and closer to old brass in the close-up shots. The greens do the quiet work: blue green leaves, sage green blades in the guard stripes and a darker bottle green in the flower centers. Ivory and cream carry the vine tracery and the small border blossoms, while navy is used sparingly for outlines, the small squares in the inner band and the diamond in the middle of the field. Burgundy and a soft dusty rose appear in the border palmettes and in a handful of field flowerheads. The overall effect is warm and lit rather than dark, and it works with wood tones, brass and cream upholstery.

Agra Weaving and Quality

Agra in northern India has woven court quality floral carpeting since the Mughal workshops of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the city's modern weavers still work from those cartoons: curved vinework, large palmettes and wide borders drawn to fill genuinely oversize looms. This piece is a good example of why India is now where most of the world's serious contemporary hand-knotted work is made. The knotting is even across all 140 inches of width, the selvages are tight, and the folded-back photographs show a clean cotton foundation with no loose or open areas. The wool is a hard wearing highland type, spun with enough body to stand up to traffic in a large formal room, and the pile has been left full rather than shaved thin. Anyone comparing this with village weaving from further west will find the distinction explained in our guide to what separates an Oriental rug from its cousins. Weighing well over 150 lbs, a rug of this scale would normally attract a freight surcharge; here it ships free to all 50 states.